This invention relates to cigarette packages. More particularly, this invention relates to detachable paperboard double half-cartons for cigarette packs in which two attached half-cartons are run through a standard tax-stamping machine and then may be separated for sale as separate, individual half-carton units.
Cigarettes are commonly sold in paperboard cartons of ten cigarette packs, each pack containing about twenty to twenty-five cigarettes. Due to the rising cost of standard cigarette cartons it has become desirable to make available to consumers half-cartons of five cigarette packs in addition to the standard 10-pack cartons.
Standard cigarette cartons contain two parallel rows of five packs in which the packs in each row are aligned side-by-side. In each row, the packs typically are positioned with the bottom of the pack facing upward and the sides adjacent to and touching each other.
Most states and some cities require that tax stamps be affixed to cigarette packs prior to sale. Because of this requirement, cigarette cartons are made without permanently sealing the lids of the cartons, so that they may be opened, run through a tax-stamping machine, re-closed, then shipped to retail stores for sale to consumers. Existing tax-stamping machines are geared for simultaneously stamping 10 cigarette packages in the standard 2.times.5-pack configuration. Accordingly, to use existing tax-stamping machines, half-cartons must be configured in parallel pairs such that two half-cartons may be sent through a standard tax-stamping machine in one 2.times.5-pack unit. However, the two half-cartons must be held together securely, without slipping, to ensure that the tax-stamping machine will function correctly. In addition, the two half-cartons must not be too thick to pass between the vertical rollers of the tax-stamping machine.
It would be desirable to be able to provide a half-carton for cigarette packs, of which two half-cartons can be temporarily attached for running through a tax-stamping machine without developing new technology or expensive retooling and modifications of existing carton fabrication machines and procedures.